By Niall Gartland

CONFIDENT Kingscourt Stars manager Colin Kelly states firmly that they haven’t “stumbled” into Sunday’s Cavan Senior Championship final against a Gowna team bidding for their third title in four years.

These two teams met in the 2023 showdown on a day to forget for Kingscourt (the final scoreline of 5-15 to 0-13 tells its own story) and it was expected that this year’s title would be fought over by Ramor, Crosserlough and Gowna.

It hasn’t panned out that way though: Ramor and Crosserlough fell by the wayside in the last-four and Kingscourt boss Colin Kelly, a Louth native, says they’re very much in the final on merit.

Assessing the challenge ahead of them, he said: “It goes without saying that Gowna are a very, very strong outfit. They’re experienced, they’re road-tested, they’ve had success, but we deserve to be here.

“We haven’t stumbled our way into a final, we’ve played well throughout the championship. And what happened in 2023 happened in 2023. It’s Sunday that counts and we’ll be trying to put our best foot forward.”

It’s been a slow burner of a season for the Stars. They endured a worrying start to the league, but Kelly says they were always learning, and they’ve brought those learnings into the championship.

“It’s like anything else, we were new in and figuring things out. For various reasons we had players not available to us – through county commitments at both senior and u-20 level, while other lads were coming back from injury. We didn’t win any of our first five matches, but what did we do was gain valuable experience into our younger lads. Also at no stage did we think those performances were poor.”

Two Kingscourt stalwarts came up trumps in a one-point win over Ramor in the semi-finals with Padraig Faulkner and Joe Dillon landing the late winning scores. But you can’t analyse this Kingscourt side without a nod to their many talented younger players coming through the ranks and already making their mark on the big stage. On top of that, they’ve shown immense resilience in the face of possible defeat.

“I wouldn’t say that was the highest quality game we have played. It was a typical semi-final, it was intense along the line for both teams.

“We showed massive resilience, which we have done throughout the competition. We came from six down against Crosserlough, 12 down against Ballyhaise, and we were behind against Ramor going into injury time and we managed to come through.

“Again the quality wouldn’t have been huge, and we gave the ball away more than we’d have liked, but that’s probably down to the fact so much was on the line.

“It’s the old cliché, that semi-finals are for winning. There’s aspects of the game we’d be very happy with, and others we wouldn’t be as happy with, but we’re trying to learn from that.”

On the influence of youth, he added: “We’ve used a lot of players throughout the season. We had four 19 year lads on the pitch against Ramor. Throughout the championship we’ve probably used another two or three on top of that. It’s a great experience for all those lads.

“The future looks bright in Kingscourt with the talent we have coming through. It’s a young team – there’s a lot of experienced lads as well, who have been down this road before. They don’t lack in terms of intensity, in terms of training, so it’s a good balance.”

Kingscourt have a very proud history with 11 senior titles to their name, the last of which was back in 2015. They’ve lost two finals in the mean-time – in 2020 and 2023 – so they’d dearly love to end their decade-long wait this Sunday.

“Being oni a final breathes life into the club, it makes everything that bit easier.

“It’s a big town and a vibrant club with a lot of hard-working people involved. Occasions like these help shape our the younger generation and their footballing futures so everyone’s playing their part.”